The Rainbow (1989)

After a passionate affair with her free thinking bi-sexual schoolteacher (Amanda Donohoe), a young girl (Sammi Davis) in the Midlands of Victorian England becomes dissatisfied with her placid and rigid surroundings and longs to experience life on her own terms. Based on the D.H. Lawrence novel and directed by Ken Russell, who successfully brought Lawrence's WOMEN IN LOVE to the screen twenty years earlier, this is a rather indifferent film lacking the provocative ambiance of Russell's 1969 film. The film (as the Lawrence novel) is actually a precursor to WOMEN IN LOVE as the main character of Ursula (predominant here) is one of the four central characters (along with her sister Gudrun) in WOMEN IN LOVE. Russell seems tired here, the film could have used some of that "oomph" he brings to his best work. Sammi Davis as Ursula is a charmer (it's a pity she left acting so early to concentrate on marriage) but with the exception of Donohoe and David Hemmings, the rest of the cast don't register. Glenda Jackson as Davis's mother (Jackson playing the mother of the character, Gudrun, that she won an Oscar for in 1970) is wasted. Paul McCann is rather listless as the soldier who sets Davis on fire. The score is by Carl Davis. With Christopher Gable (THE BOY FRIEND) as the father.